How socialism helped shape modern religion

[Chris]

I found this bit of history of political ideas and their association with Christianity interesting especially since today's socialists tend to be anti-Chrisitan.

How socialism helped shape modern religion

...socialists had a vital and productive relationship with religion. In the 1820s, the French Saint-Simonians, the first influential socialist movement, declared themselves the apostles of their "church" and preached a "New Christianity." The Fourierists, who succeeded the Saint-Simonians as the most dynamic socialist school, demanded the "return to the Christianity of Jesus Christ." In the 1840s, the leading communist Étienne Cabet identified communism with "the true Christianity according to Jesus Christ." Pierre Leroux, who had coined the term socialisme, explained its meaning with "religious democracy." Engels, in 1843, had marveled at the Frenchmen's "mysticism," but later observers, who had usually been shaped by Marxism, dismissed the religion of the early socialists as superficial rhetoric or childish enthusiasm. However, that is simply not the case. Many early socialists looked to religion for ways to define society according to principles both religious and socialist.

Early socialists sought to create a "synthesis" of religion, science, and philosophy to counter the excesses of the Enlightenment. They saw the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution, as needing correction against a tendency to materialism, atheism, and egoistic individualism. The Saint-Simonians declared that "the political order will be, in its entirety, a religious institution." In this perfect society, a class of priests would maintain social harmony. They even accepted the description of socialism as a "theocracy," as long as one "understands theocracy as the state in which the political and the religious laws are identical, and where the leaders of society are those who speak in the name of God."

Following the long-established example of Catholicism, socialists demanded "spiritual authority" and modeled their universal association after the structure of the Catholic Church. The borders to contemporary reformist Catholics were often blurred, most spectacularly in the case of Félicité de Lamennais, a priest who had founded the so-called neo-Catholic movement and had turned to a Christian socialism in the early 1830s. Lamennais's highly influential writings fuelled the socialist determination to establish the "true Christianity."

The February Revolution of 1848 failed to realize the socialist Kingdom of God on Earth. The coup of Louis-Napoléon in 1851 brought the demise of the Second Republic, and socialist activities were outlawed...

Along, too, during this time came Rousseau, and then came Marx.

[Devil'sAdvocate]

I found this bit of history of political ideas and their association with Christianity interesting especially since today's socialists tend to be anti-Chrisitan.

How socialism helped shape modern religion



Along, too, during this time came Rousseau, and then came Marx.

I don't see socialism particularity compatible with the religions of Anton LeVay, Max Stirner, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, de Sade, or any of the countless other sects invented for the veneration of something, whether Allah, Yaweh, Freedom, Capitalism, Socialism, Hedonism or whatever mythical entity their prophet conjured up.

[Chris]

I don't see socialism particularity compatible with the religions of Anton LeVay, Max Stirner, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, de Sade, or any of the countless other sects invented for the veneration of something, whether Allah, Yaweh, Freedom, Capitalism, Socialism, Hedonism or whatever mythical entity their prophet conjured up.

Do you know what the meaning of topic is? Stick to it, please.

[Devil'sAdvocate]

Do you know what the meaning of topic is? Stick to it, please.

It was a non-requiter, given that the religion of socialism obviously hasn't shaped modern religions (and ideological equivalents thereof) which are inherently anti-socialist, the religion of capitalism being one of them.

Rather, religion (or the essense thereof) seems to have shaped socialism, as well as capitalism, as well as other myths.

[Chris]

Christianity did influence the West. Enlightened individualism was one way and informed early socialis, which counter to the Enlightenment, following Kant and others, sought to re-establish religion. It was later socialism, of the preached by Marx, that turned anti-relgious. But that's what the topic is.

[Devil'sAdvocate]

Christianity did influence the West. Enlightened individualism was one way and informed early socialis, which counter to the Enlightenment, following Kant and others, sought to re-establish religion. It was later socialism, of the preached by Marx, that turned anti-relgious. But that's what the topic is.

That's not nearly as eloquent a mythical history as that of Marxism, but every religion and cult needs a mythical past to give it credibility, I guess if the cult of enlightenment or "enlightened individualism" needs its own mythical past, that will do just fine.

Marxism wasn't "anti-religious", it was just a secular religion which opposed its traditional rivals, much how Catholics waged wars against Muslims centuries ago.

And like the Catholic Church, the cult of the Enlightenment and it's traditionally racist, hegemonic, self-referential institutions such as "Western science, Western Civilization, etc" - will also become archaic if they can't compete in a post-truth, multi-cultural world, and its myths like that of 'individualism' can't stay relevant to the greater reality - given that individuals don't exist by scientific measurements, but as a construct - the only thing that separates an individual organism from a collective of cells is a definition.

[Chris]

That's not nearly as eloquent a mythical history as that of Marxism, but every religion and cult needs a mythical past to give it credibility, I guess if the cult of enlightenment or "enlightened individualism" needs its own mythical past, that will do just fine.

Marxism wasn't "anti-religious", it was just a secular religion which opposed its traditional rivals, much how Catholics waged wars against Muslims centuries ago.

And like the Catholic Church, the cult of the Enlightenment and it's traditionally racist, hegemonic self-referential institutions such as "Western science, Western Civilization, etc" - will also become archaic if they can't compete in a post-truth, multi-cultural world, and its myths like that of 'individualism' can't stay relevant to the greater reality - given that individuals don't exist by scientific measurements, but as a construct - the only thing that separates an individual organism from a collective of cells is a definition.

The topic is history not myth or what ever it is you think you're talking about.

[Devil'sAdvocate]

The topic is history not myth or what ever it is you think you're talking about.

It's the myth of the 'Enlightenment', which is just another $#@!ized retelling of ancient myths, updated for it's culture and its time - that's the basis of your 'religion'.

The problem is that given that it's Western-centric myth, and "Western civilization" is a thing of ancient history - it won't be able to stay relevant unless it adapts to the greater reality.

That, and the fact that "individuals" in nature are an arbitrary definition. One can have 'faith' in socialism or capitalism, but that's all they can have - since they're based on arbitrary definitions of individuals and collectives, or wholes and parts, neither of which are mutually exclusives.